Few seats were left empty at Schwab Auditorium Wednesday night as students, faculty and community members gathered to witness classical acting at its finest.
Actors from the London stage presented the Shakespearean comedy As You Like It, a performance supported by a tiny cast of five.
As the lights dimmed and the audience's chatter subsided, the five actors strode up to the front of the stage and fired the description of their parts out like bullets from a pistol to the audience. Then they dispersed by the lonely flute playing of actress Jennifer Luckraft, who played the part of Celia and Phebe.
Orlando, played by Guy Burgess, began with his powerful and angry speech concerning the way his brother Oliver, played by Ken Drury, had mistreated him since their father died. Oliver, jealous of his brother and thus wanting to get rid of him, employs Charles the Wrestler to fight and kill Orlando.
Shakespeare met Fight Club when the wrestling match took place, as Burgess played both parts of Orlando and Charles. The audience roared with laughter as Burgess wrestled with himself in a fashion similar to Ed Norton's schizophrenic episode, but in a more comedic style by punching the air and then falling down to receive the blows. Burgess differentiated between the characters by their dialect: Orlando spoke proper English and Charles spoke cockney.
According to Lolita Chakrabarti, who played the heroine Rosalind and the shepherdess Audrey, the company brought in a professional stage fighter to stage the fight scene.
"They're very versatile. I especially love the wrestling match," said Linda Woodbridge, professor of English whose classes are being visited by actress Jennifer Luckraft today.
The five-member troupe called ACTER or "A Center for Theatre, Education and Research," works with universities in North America as a tool for teaching students about Shakespeare in a fun way. Unlike other tours these actors fulfill the duties that are often run by professional administrators such as transportation, press and stage-managing.
"Your brain has to be in gear because it's hard to keep students interested, so our motto is not to sit and talk too long," Chakrabarti said.
The stage was bare save nine chairs strategically placed around the stage and the actors were simply dressed in white shirts and black pants. The simplicity of the set did not detract from the play but enhanced it by using props like sunglasses and hats to signify character change. There was also no director, the actors themselves filled that role.
"It's done so minimal that you focus on just the words. The aim of the company is for the actors to tell the story themselves," Chakrabarti said.
"The language is so full and challenging as an actor," she said.
In the play Rosalind falls in love with Orlando but plays a game on him by cross-dressing as a man, a disguise she originally donned for safety reasons as she was also banished to the forest. By her wit she tests his love for her.
"It really brings the text alive. I'm catching jokes that I missed in the reading," said Ryan Karwell (senior-English).
